November RIP

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Here's what we talked about in November:

Do trends matter?
Anthony schools us on chart country
Year-end listzzzzz
Indie Special 1: MBV
Senseless artist devotion
Unsustainable false songs/production binaries R Us
Indie Special 2: The Brit Box
A crash course in contemporary hip-hop
Roisin: magnificent or menace?

Plus canons for ELO, Stevie Wonder, Gwen/No Doubt, the Pop Open, the Year In Pop, and album chats about Grills Aloud and Kylie. What a busy month.

[Poll #1099594]

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I don't think GA's double entendres are sexually exciting - I just happen to enjoy that strain of British smuttiness! ("Sexy No No No" is actually a pretty accurate summation of GA - the nudge-nudge stuff fits them a lot better).

It may be a really impertinent question but how - if at all - do you relate your diva appreciation with mainstream gay culture's traditional love for white pop divas? The diva worship has always struck me as a really interesting thread in yr criticism and as the discarding of Lil Kim from the Grau's top 1000 albums proves it strikes a nerve.

Kim's stuff has never really gripped me for some reason - I like Trina a lot and have enjoyed records by even minor ho-rap entities like Khia more than I have Kim: I should investigate further when I'm in that mood next.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if you're meant to find Kim's music sexually exciting either, even the bits where she basically directs masturbation scenarios. I think she intends her music to be threatening/exciting to straight men but, more than that, empowering and liberating to women/gay men.

I share most of mainstream gay culture's love of white pop divas - MADGE! - though I get annoyed when the gays go nuts for cheapo popstars who will never be divas, ever. And I think this is the crux of why I get so annoyed when black r&b/hip-hop divas are overlooked or ignored, because I appreciate Kim and Trina and Ciara in exactly the same way that I appreciate Madonna and Xtina, and so should they. Pro-pop criticism has always been vaguely coded gay but this is really explicit now - eg Pjustice is a lot more overt about how much of its content is for the gays than it was five years ago. And ho-rap is very, very queer-friendly.

Kim and Trina are about equal in my eyes; Kim has maybe been more reliably full of attitude but there's not much between their pinnacles, 'How Many Licks?' and 'B R Right'. They're equally filthy but Kim is more of a hard-ass (her gunz and drugz chat is totes hardcore and awesome), Trina more of a brat.

Rasheeda's 'Georgia Peach' is probably the most underrated ho-rap classic of them all.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I get the feeling that PJustice (like most publications) has multiple conflicting audiences (some of the conflicts being within an individual reader too!) - diva-loving pop fans, crate-digging pop fans, bouncy excitable pop fans, all coded gay to a greater or lesser degree.